In an era of rapidly changing literary tastes and movements, the last half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, Arthur George Sedgwick wrote criticism which resembled the judicial criticism of the eighteenth century. Sedgwick seemed continually involved in a rearguard action against what he perceived to be a loosening of prescribed rules of taste and decorum. Despite his high moral and formal tone, his reviews sparkle with Johnsonian wit, making them, despite his strict and sometimes eccentric viewpoints, eminently readable and consistently interesting.

Sedgwick was born in New York City on 6 October 1844. He attended Harvard and earned an A.B. in 1864. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the Union army. As a first lieutenant of the 20th Massachusetts Infantry, he was captured by Confederate troops at Deep Bottom, Virginia, in July 1864, and held in Libby Prison, where he suffered a serious illness. In September...